Tito and Yougoslavian Partisans

I can completely understand why a resident of the Balkans could believe that NATO had nefarious reasons for not intervening sooner in the genocidal debacle afflicting that benighted region, but I must Respectfully, and strongly disagree.

While NATO members France, Great Britain and the US had frequently used military force to intervene in various conflicts around the globe, NATO as a whole saw themselves as a purely defensive alliance that avoided military action that did not directly involve a NATO member. They would deploy small bodies as UN sanctioned Peacekeepers. but this presupposed that all or most parties wanted peace and all they had to do was physically separate the warring factions in actions that did not lead to many 'peacekeeper' casualties or to any moral angst over what they did or did not do.

As we know the UN Peacekeeping effort was largely a disaster as some parties to the conflict used them only to consolidate previous gains and to set up new avenues for exploitation, often manipulating the UN and their peacekeepers to allow some of the most horrific acts to take place. This left a most disagreeable taste in both the peacekeepers and the nations they came from calling into question getting involved in the first place. The opinion of Russia also played a part as many in NATO viewed the Balkan's as, if not in, very close to what she considered her sphere of influence, and not something they were willing to risk war over.

It took time to get everyone on board with a NATO joint effort. No one was very keen, including the US, but eventually they could no longer wish it away or expect it to resolve itself. Too be honest I thought the original efforts too little to be effective, but I have to admit that they were indeed surprising successful considering that NATO did not suffer heavy losses or escalate the conflict into something out of control.

 

Where the hell moderators are?

Please, move the recent posts of Kai-Petri and Belasar into »Propaganda« section. Thank you.

 

WE are the 'Man'

 

Ah, I see now! I have thought that the "rats" abandoned the ship.

 

I think there is some merit to discussing the situation in the Balkans over the last couple of decades however IMO this isn't the thread to do it in. We actually managed to bring it back on to topic once and were/are getting some interesting WW2 related historical interchanges. Splitting off the discussion of more modern events makes sense to me. In the interest of keeping this WW2 related I'm even managing to restrain myself but how long I can keep it up ....

 

Below is an interesting photo of an ISU-152K self-propelled assault gun with Yugoslavian crew - in Berlin 1945. (Click on the thumbnail to see the photo).

Yugoslav People's Deliberation Army flag is clearly visible on a turret. I can just imagine how the crew felt. Just four years ago they had no choice except to escape into forests to fight without arms and ammunition and now they were pummeling the capital of aggressors. Meanwhile, SS-Nordland had no choice except to die for the Führer or to surrender to the Soviets. A miserable choice and just four years ago they dreamed about the swift victory and Christmas 1941 back home.

A soldier’s' life consists of two main ingredients: luck and courage,

View attachment 23607

 

Here's a beautiful photo of two partisans looking towards the remarkable landscape of Gorski Kotar, Croatia.



And another photo of partisans having a snowball fight at Bilogora, Croatia in 1944.

 

that's total BS....it's not NATO's or America's job to go into every war and stop it...screw that....just like Rwanda, that wasn't our 'job'....don't try to make it sound like it was NATO's fault .....very, very complicated to get into a war, and try to intervene, etc.....just like Beirut 1983, Somalia, Rwanda, etc etc........you are way out of the ball field....
it's a no-win situation to get involved--one side is not going to like it......one side says this or that, the other side says the opposite, etc

 

This is getting ridiculous...

If it's not NATO's or America's job to stop every war then why did they stop the war in Yugoslavia at the end? Why does America implicate in every f***ing conflict in the world?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#20th_century_wars

 

It is ridiculous but your contribution to this theme is so great that this theme would stop without you before it has really started.

Just ignore of-topic and propaganda and talking to you would be pleasure indeed. And, furthermore, this tread is not going to get out of control - it is up to us to make it clean and enjoyable.

Please, reconsider your decision.

 

Like Skipper I think this thread has merit and should continue so let us ALL agree to forgo discussion of the break up of Yugoslavia, the civil war that followed and any modern interventions and concentrate upon that which pertains to WWII and at most the period shortly after the war.

If any wish to discuss the breakup, civil war, intervention please confine it to the stump.

Thank you.

 

Thank you Belasar. I am out of salutes for today but please wait until tomorrow.

This is an international forum but active members are predominantly American and Anglo-Saxon. Therefore I am sure that the following episode from the war in Yugoslavia will be of particular interest because it involves USAAF, OSS and rescue of more than 1000 American crewmen.

The story begins with the failed Allied attempt to destroy oilfields of Ploesti – Rumania. Many bombers were shot down but these who survived crash-landing over Yugoslavia found refuge among civil population. Punishment for helping Allied soldiers was death sentence for the whole village and yet people risked their lives to help American airmen. According to statistics compiled by the US Air Force Air Crew Rescue Unit, between 1 January and 15 October 1944, a total of 1,152 American airmen were airlifted from Yugoslavia.

That was the greatest rescue mission of World War II.

The rest of the story you may read here:

Operation Halyard

The book about the rescue mission is here:

Forgotten 5000

on the photo below -B-24D's fly over Ploiești during World War II. :

 

Both the Partisans and the Chetniks aided downed Allied airmen.

B-24D's flew the 1 August 43 Operation Tidal Wave mission, but the photo you posted is the 451st Bomb Group on 31 May 44. The lead aircraft is a B-24G-5-NT named CON JOB, 42-78145.

Perhaps the Tidal Wave mission could be classified as failed, but the Allied air campaign against Ploesti reduced output to 10% before the Red Army took over the city on the ground. I would not consider that a 'failure'.

 

But losses of the Tidal Wave were higher than expected whilst the damaged facilities were rapidly repaired: Astro Romana was to full scale production within few months and Concordia Vega was running at 100 capacity by September.

However, planes that landed in neutral Turkey were confiscated and crews were arrested and kept in custody until the end of war. On the other side, civil population of Yugoslavia, despite cruel aggression, provided refuge to American crewmen and helped the rescue action, despite the risk of losing everything, not just their lives. This makes a huge difference between the “neutral” Turkey and Yugoslav population opposing the Axis.

 

The point being that those airmen returned by Operation Halyard were from the 1944 air campaign against Ploesti. Operation Reunion repatriated airmen from both Tidal Wave and the 1944 campaign.

 

Indeed. I was a little bit puzzled by the numbers which were too high for Tidal Wave alone. Thanks for the info. I am looking forward to learn from you more as you appear to be an expert in this area.

It is interesting that just modest information is available regarding the rescue operation as if the both sides kept that matter as a secret not only during the war but after the war too.

 

I've never read about the Operation Halyard before. Thanks for sharing!

 

The El Shatt was a complex of World War II refugee camps in the desert of the Sinai peninsula, in Egypt. Residents lived there from the summer of 1944 to the beginning of 1946. The region of Dalmatia (Croatia) was evacuated by the Allies, ahead of a German invasion in 1944. The camp was disbanded in 1946 after the war ended.

Fleeing the German offensive in the beginning of 1944, a large number of civillians (over 30,000) in fear of reprisals, escaped to the island of Vis. Vis had been established as the HQ for the Partisan army. The allied British army was not able to accept so many people who were fleeing to Italy. It was decided that the non-combatant population of the island and evacuated refugees would be sent to southern Italy. Firstly they were sent to Bari, and then to Taranto. The refugees were mostly from Makarska (around 6000), Vodice, Hvar, Vis, Korčula, Ravni Kotari and Bukovica. There was heavy fighting in Italy between the Allied forces and the Germans. It was decided to transfer the refugees to Egypt, which was then under the British control.

During their time in the camp, there were 300 marriages. Additionally 650 children were born. They returned home at the beginning of 1946 when the war was over. At the place of their exile rests a graveyard with 825 graves of people who did not withstand the tough conditions of life in the desert.

My uncle's mother was born in El Shatt. Her family left the island of Iž because of the same reasons all of the people left. Three of her brothers died in the Battle of Sutjeska.

 

What an amazing account of a corner of WW2 history that I knew nothing about. As is my wont, I shall have to delve into this thread of the war. My father-in-law was with the British forces in Italy and was in Trieste where he would have had some contact with the Yougoslavians and other peoples of the area.

 

Is he still alive?